Why Bootstrapping Is Better than an Accelerator Program

Amy Hoy

September 17, 2012

NOTE FROM YOUR EDITOR: Sometimes you get an email that’s so right, that so captures what you’ve been trying to create for years that you just can’t help but dance and squeal with glee. That’s how I felt when I saw this very powerful story on the 30x500 mailing list. I feel honored to help James learn to bootstrap.

It is almost 2 years to the day that I was accepted, along with a partner, into a technology accelerator program. I’ll make a long story very short — we burned through $20,000 and had nothing to show for it.

I spent a long time beating myself up over the experience. My wife, who was initially leery of my participation since our family would forgo 6 months of income while I worked in the program, kept telling me “Well, at least you learned something.”

Yes, I did learn how NOT to succeed with someone else’s money. But only very recently did I discover I learned something even better. I learned that creating a viable business is not just finding really talented people and adding money. From what I’ve seen, it seems like every venture capitalist believes that that is in fact the magic formula.

I’m sure that approach (great people + money) can produce results. But it’s not a recipe that always works. More often than not, you get what we got — nothing.

This approach NEVER occurs to the funded team. They are looking to solve a huge problem by randomly choosing solutions, and then trying like mad to find problems. Which problems are picked are almost always chosen by HiPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) or cult of personality. Then, of course, there are the slides (or the “deck”) from which you must pitch, pitch, pitch, always hunting for the next round of money to keep going. Working on solving a real problem for real business people? Forget it, you better practice your pitch!

The accelerator doesn’t look for audiences — to them, the whole world is the audience. Gestalt is the community communication. It’s shocking to look back and realize my intuition was true - no one knew what the hell they were doing. Success was as much luck - hitting just the right combination of magical idea and current trend. Showing viable, money making results was not considered important - showing “traction” was.

Did you gain 12000 more users this month? FANTASTIC! Did those users make you any money? “Well, no.” Oh, did they cost you a ton of money? “Well, yes… but look at our traction!” What utter rot!

Don’t ever feel that you are missing something by not being 22, up to your eyeballs in the latest technologies, working 20 hours a day at some hot little startup, mentored by former one-hit-wonder CEOs or slickster VC types.

You know what you should feel like you are missing? Total control over your life, including how and what you work on.

Don’t be in the race to grow big and fast, so you can become like the next human dumping ground. The world doesn’t need another tragedy built on HR orgs and technological fiefdoms. It needs a million more real businesses, creating joy and making money.

“We were taught nothing about how to build a real business.”

AMY: Wow. What was the backstory to this email? What triggered it?

JAMES: Backstory? Not much to say other than my wife was in Slovakia and I was alone late at night, contemplating the fate of the free world. I suppose I was also thinking about my history, where I had been, where I wanted to go. I might have also nipped some brandy.

It just struck me that as wanna-be-entrepreneurs , we put of a lot of time trying to get into that accelerator. And when we were accepted our focus switched from customer discovery to an elaborate game of “find the investor.”

In the meantime, we were taught nothing about how to build a real business [in the accelerator]. The default assumption was that you would just figure it out. No one had a clear method. Every mentor who had done it before had no system for showing how to do it. The people who ran the program (and I remain friends with the director) also had no agenda for showing us how do it.

So, for my purposes, 30x500 was the first place I’d found where not only mindset but specific tactics were taught. And each step was broken down, too.

Should you attend 30x500?

AMY: If you could give 1 sentence of advice to somebody on the fence about taking 30x500, what would it be?

JAMES: If you want to learn how to create products and sell them, then 30x500 is an excellent place to start. Also, if you are good at bullshitting yourself, 30x500 is a great place to unlearn it.

30x500 reopens (TBA).

This story by James was beautifully timed, but I didn’t ask him to write it; I wasn’t even sniffing around the alumni list trying to get some launch content. Nope. This email, like so many others, was totally unsolicited. To my mind, that makes it even better. There was no external incentive for James to write it. I didn’t promise special favors or even that I’d be grateful.

He wrote it because he felt it.

That’s why I love my job.

A while ago, 30x500 alumni Brennan said that I was the midwife to his business. I helped bring it into the world.

That’s a slightly awkward, messy thing to say. It’s raw. I like it, because you know what else is slightly awkward, messy, and raw? Creating a real business with real income.

If you’re serious about making it happen, I’m serious about helping you.

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The Details:

Class starts Sept 13th & 14th, 3 - 5 pm Eastern time. Admission is $1950 for the Bootcamp, a follow-up office hours chat, and the videos & materials from the Product Launch Roundtable online conference; and $2450 for the Bootcamp, the follow-up office hours chat, the videos & materials from the Launch Roundtable, and 4 weeks of guided exercises and weekly chats to help you start executing from day 1. Nauseating amounts of detail here.

Doors open (TBA). Well, I say “doors open” but I mean “the doors to the application process open.” You have to apply (so I can help you decide if it’s right for you.)

The application process is first-come, first-serve — last time, most of the seats were taken by folks who applied in the first two hours.